Archives for December 2018

(Christina Parreira) – In a recent column published by the Vancouver Sun, Paul Paterson and Andrew Davidson take feminists who “leave no room for compromise” on the issue of legalizing sex work to the proverbial woodshed.

In particular, the columnists criticize “just how cynical, divisive and meanspirited radical feminism has become,” singling out Meghan Murphy, editor of the Feminist Current blog which boasts of providing a “unique perspective on male violence against women.”

The authors note that Ms. Murphy views prostitution – both legal and illegal – as “patriarchal oppression” in which women, even those willingly engaged in the practice, are exploited to “suit men’s fantasies.”

But Paterson and Davidson maintain she and her followers are barking up the wrong tree…

“If what radical feminists claim is true about prostitution – that it is inherently abusive, oppressive and exploitive – the abolitionist cause surely would garner widespread support. But times have changed, and it’s the anti-prostitution activists who now find themselves swimming against the current.”

The authors note the Ms. Murphy herself “acknowledges two major shifts in attitudes toward sex work” that indicate she and her anti-prostitution activists are on the wrong side of history…

“First, third-wave feminists have played a ‘foundational role in advocating for the legalization of prostitution.’ Second, the left in North America has ‘almost wholly taken a pro-prostitution stance.’

As such, they are increasingly finding themselves the odd (wo)man…

“One of radical feminism’s ultimate goals – criminalizing the demand side of sexual services – remains frustrated by the fact that progressives have joined forces in support of decriminalization. Rational individuals would view this as an opportunity to question their own self-evident positions. Alas, Murphy is not among them.”

In addition, progressives on the left were joined this year in a major and public way by live-and-let-live libertarians on the right in support of decriminalization.

At their 2018 national convention in New Orleans, the Libertarian Party adopted a platform that, as Reason Magazine put it, takes a stand “unequivocally for sex-worker rights and in opposition to cops caging people for consensual sex.”

“We assert the right of consenting adults to provide sexual services to clients for compensation,” reads the ground-breaking platform statement, “and the right of clients to purchase sexual services from consenting sex workers.”

Unfortunately, as Paterson and Davidson point out, Ms. Murphy and her adherents consider “those who advocate to legalize prostitution” as traitors to the empowerment-of-women cause…

“When it comes to sex work, radical feminists leave no room for political compromise. Instead, they adopt a brand of principled moralism that is dictatorial, punitive and judgmental. Prostitution is viewed through the singular lens: male violence against women. Women are victims; men are victimizers. Case closed.”

But the case is decidedly not closed.

As a former legal sex worker in Nevada’s legal brothels, I can assure you I was never a “victim” and my clients were never “victimizers.” We were consenting adults. A willing buyer and a willing seller. It was MY choice. And it was their choice.

It’s bad enough that many social conservatives continue to stigmatize consenting sex work between adults on moralistic and religious grounds and falsely claim “victimization” and “oppression” of women.

Self-proclaimed feminists such as Ms. Murphy should know better.

Real women – strong, independent women – are perfectly capable of making such decisions ourselves. To deny that is to perpetuate the myth that women are helpless and incapable of making our own life choices.

That’s about as anti-feminist as you can get.

Christina Parreira, M.A., is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In addition to being an instructor and researcher, she is a proud legal courtesan and an Ambassador for the Nevada Brothel Association.

(Amy Alonzo | Mason Valley News) – Lyon County voters resoundingly told county commissioners they want to keep the county’s five brothels up and running. Responding to an advisory question on the November ballot, about 17,000 voters told commissioners to keep the brothels open while just 4,000 said they wanted them to close. County commissioners have not yet taken any action on the matter.

The issue came to a head after the anti-prostitution and sex trafficking group No Little Girl filed a petition to place a referendum on the county’s ballot giving voters the option of outlawing brothels or freezing the county’s brothel ordinance. Commissioners opted to place their own question on the ballot to prevent the county’s brothel ordinance from possibly being frozen.

There are four brothels in Lyon County, all in the Mound House area. Their owner, Dennis Hof, died in October, but Hof’s associates formed the Nevada Brothel Association earlier this month. Suzette Cole, who is managing Hof’s Lyon County brothels, was named director. The group plans to fight a proposed bill in the upcoming legislative session that aims to end legal prostitution in Nevada. Sen. Joe Hardy, R-Boulder City, has drafted a bill that addresses legalized prostitution and the issue of human trafficking.

(Lois Choate) – Dennis Hof (late owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel and others) educated me on legal brothels and the service they perform – which is to help eliminate sex trafficking, etc.

I was brought up in a Southern Baptist home. Which is not a bad thing, but I was definitely sheltered as well as well as taught bad girls did bad things and not to be a bad girl.

Over the years my views changed and I grew up to know that there are bad people who do bad things – and sex trafficking is one.

I met Dennis at the Nye County fair last year. He came over and introduced himself to me and the conversation began!

I came away with a whole new view of the brothels, and had a peace of mind that although it was not a career for me or those close to me, I could accept it in its reality.

After all it has been here since the beginning of time – and Jesus himself forgave the lady at the well.

I always remembered that scripture when events with people I cared about were involved in things that were hard for me to understand. Education is not just reading, writing and arithmetic. It is about understanding and accepting people who have different views and ways of life.

We supported Dennis. He was one of the kindest men I have met in my lifetime and I hope people will get educated on the truth about his kindness and true caring for the people of Nevada.

Mr. Malone, former general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is now competing against a new and far more dangerous opponent right here in Nevada: The illegal sex trafficking market.

As co-founder and president of the U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking, Mr. Malone is fighting to “save the lives of children caught in this dark and barbaric industry.” A noble cause. And one every person with an ounce of decency should embrace. However…

No serious discussion of this issue and how to combat the practice can take place without adding to the mix the one proven solution that certain parts of Nevada have embraced for almost 50 years now: Legalizing, taxing and regulating prostitution among consenting adults.

In a recent op-ed published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Mr. Malone writes that “Las Vegas is a hub for sex trafficking, including among minors.” And he cites an Arizona State University study that found that “one in five underage victims was brought to Las Vegas specifically for the purpose of sex trafficking.”

Pure evil. But in order to have a serious, rational debate on how to end illegal sex trafficking in America, two distinctions must be clearly made.

One, that there’s a BIG difference between adults forced into prostitution and adults who freely and willingly engage in such sex-for-fee work. And two, that minors – unlike adults – are not able to give legal consent.

“When a man pays for sex,” Mr. Malone wrote, “he has no idea whether that ‘willing 21-year-old’ he is buying is really 14 – or whether she’s in the room because she’s being forced by someone else.”

In the illegal sex trade, this is absolutely true.

However, it’s absolutely NOT true in Nevada’s legal brothels, where every sex worker must be an adult who is issued a sheriff’s work permit after being fingerprinted and subjected to age verification and an FBI background check.

As such there are NO underage prostitutes working in Nevada’s legal brothels.

So, if your concern is truly to eliminate underage sex trafficking, then Nevada’s legal brothel system is the most effective, PROVEN weapon. The problem: Legal brothels are prohibited in Las Vegas which, as Mr. Malone notes, is ground zero for the illegal sex industry.

Back in the “old days” the government prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol. But people still wanted their adult beverages and found so many ways around Prohibition that Prohibition was eventually repealed.

Now the sale of alcohol is legal, taxed and regulated nationwide.

Similarly, at one time gambling was considered a societal no-no. But people were bound and determined to gamble no matter what government nannies said. Eventually Nevada legalized, taxed and licensed the activity – and is now considered the “gold standard” for regulating the industry nationwide.

Ditto marijuana, now legalized, taxed and licensed in Nevada.

Oh, and gay marriage – another activity between consenting adults the government has no business prohibiting. The U.S. Supreme Court has said so. Thus, gay marriages are now legal, taxed and licensed nationwide.

The next obvious frontier: Legalizing, taxing and regulating prostitution.

Like it or not, that’s the single best way to get rid of illegal street pimps who traffic underaged girls – just as legalizing marijuana has put so many illegal pot dealers out of business. And the revenue generated by taxing legal sex-for-fee work could be earmarked for programs to continue battling the illegal sex market.

We should all be grateful that Mr. Malone and others have dedicated so much time and effort to saving child victims from this scourge. But to ignore or oppose the one proven weapon in the war, legalization of fee-for-sex among consenting adults, is short-sighted.

It’s time to put EVERY option on the table in the fight against the “dark and barbaric” illegal sex trafficking industry. And it’s time to stop conflating illegal sex trafficking, especially of minors, with what happens in Nevada’s legal, licensed and regulated brothels.

Do that, Mr. Malone, and you’ll find some powerful new allies in your commendable cause. Soldier on. And let us know how we can help.

Ms. Cole is CEO of four legal brothels in Lyon County, Nevada and president of the Nevada Brothel Association. For more information, please visit www.NevadaBrothelAssociation.com

(Associated Press) — Associates of the late Nevada brothel owner Dennis Hof are preparing to revive the brothel industry’s political voice in Nevada.

The Nevada Brothel Association announced its formation Friday. The industry’s longtime lobbyist retired in 2015, leaving no unified voice for the state’s brothel owners.

The PAC filed with the Nevada Secretary of State’s office in November and named Suzette Cole, the manager of Hof’s four Lyon County brothels, as director.

Association spokesman Chuck Muth says a failed effort to outlaw brothels in Lyon County spurred the group’s formation. He says the association plans to fight a bill in the upcoming Nevada legislative session that proposed to end legal prostitution in the state.

(Carson City, Nevada) – Associates of late Nevada State Assemblyman Dennis Hof (R-District 36) have re-registered the “Nevada Brothel Association” as a state political action committee (PAC) in advance of the 2019 Nevada Legislature.

The new PAC was formed by Suzette Cole, general manager of Assemblyman Hof’s business operations in Lyon County, along with Alice Little and Ruby Rae – two legal courtesans who led the successful “Save Our Brothels” campaign to defeat an anti-brothel question on November’s ballot.

“We perform a valuable and safe service that’s been stigmatized and misrepresented for many, many years,” said Rae. “What we learned from fighting Lyon County Question 1 was that it’s extremely important and productive to reach out to the community and tell our side of the story.

“We invited our opponents to debate us in a series of town hall meetings, but they refused. So the forums were more educational; where we just answered questions from the audience. And we ended up winning with 80 percent of the vote.”

Little notes that legal brothels are an important defense against sex trafficking, an issue regularly brought up by those wishing to shut them down.

“It’s ILLEGAL sex work that exploits children,” Little pointed out. “It’s ILLEGAL sex work that traffics. It’s ILLEGAL sex work that sees women exploited and abused by pimps. We don’t have that in legal brothels.”

The original Nevada Brothel Association was established in 1985 in an effort to combat legislative threats to outlaw Nevada’s legal brothels. A year later, the association hired the legendary George Flint to serve as its lobbyist at the Nevada Legislature.

With Mr. Flint’s retirement in 2015, the association disbanded.

Assemblyman Hof’s former campaign manager, Chuck Muth, is the PAC’s registered agent and serving as the group’s spokesman.

“While the effort to ban legal brothels in Lyon County failed this year, a new legislative threat seeking to ban prostitution statewide has emerged,” said Muth. “With Assemblyman Hof no longer here to speak for and defend the industry, it’s necessary for others to step up and carry the torch. That’s why we decided to bring back the Nevada Brothel Association.”

The original founding members of the new association include the four Hof-owned properties in Lyon County – the Bunny Ranch, Kit Kat Ranch, Love Ranch and Sagebrush Ranch. The group plans to reach out to and invite other brothel operators to join before the start of the 2019 Nevada legislative session.

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Suzette Cole, CEO, Moonlite Bunny Ranch

“Prostitution is the oldest profession and will not go away. Nevada has been doing it right since 1971 when we took it out of the criminal’s hands and put it into a highly-regulated industry. As an added benefit, there has never been a case of HIV/AIDS in the history of legal brothels here…and you can’t say that about any other profession in the United States.”

John Stossel, Syndicated Columnist

“We don’t have to cheer for prostitution, or think it’s nice, to keep government out of it and let participants make up their own minds. It’s wrong to ban sex workers’ options just to make ourselves feel better.”

Steve Chapman, Syndicated Columnist

“Prohibition doesn’t eliminate the harms generally associated with prostitution, such as violence, human trafficking and disease. On the contrary, it fosters them by driving the business underground.”

Christina Parreira, UNLV Researcher/Sex Worker

“Sex work is my CHOICE. I’d like to continue to have the opportunity to make that choice legally. We don’t need protection. We’re consenting, adult women.”

New York Assemblyman Richard Gottfried

“Trying to stop sex work between consenting adults should not be the business of the criminal justice system.”

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker

“Yes, sex work should be decriminalized. As a general matter, I don’t believe that we should be criminalizing activity between consenting adults, and especially when doing so causes even more harm for those involved.”

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders

“I think the idea of legalizing prostitution is something that should be considered…(and) certainly needs to be discussed.”

U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris

“When you’re talking about consenting adults, I think that, yes, we should really consider that we can’t criminalize consensual behavior, as long as no one is being harmed. … We should not be criminalizing women who are engaged in consensual opportunities for employment.”

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren

“I believe humans should have autonomy over their own bodies and they get to make their own decisions.”

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

“If a consenting adult wants to engage in sex work, that is their right, and it should not be a crime. All people should have autonomy over their bodies and their labor.”

Gov. John Hickenlooper

“Legalizing prostitution and regulating it, so there are norms and protections and we understand more clearly how people are being treated and make sure we prevent abuse, I think it should be really looked at.”

Mike Gravel, former Alaska Senator

“Sex workers are workers, and they deserve the dignity and respect that every worker deserves. For too long, we’ve denied them that. Sex workers, not politicians, should lead the way in crafting sex work policy.”

Prof. Ronald Weitzer, George Washington University:

“Unlike illegal street prostitution in many other places, Nevada’s legal brothels do not disturb public order, create nuisances, or negatively impact local communities in other ways. Instead, they provide needed tax revenue for cash-strapped rural towns.”

Prof. Barbara Brents, UNLV author, “State of Sex”:

“Teams of scholars…have concluded that Nevada’s legal brothels provide a far safer environment for sex workers than the criminalized system in the rest of the United States.”

Prof. Sarah Blithe, UNR author, “Sex and Stigma”:

“Discussions of legal prostitution are rife with misinformation. Academic work and popular press publications alike often conflate legal prostitution in the United States with illegal prostitution.”

Lee Herz Dixon:

“Do I think eradicating legal prostitution from all Nevada counties will erase the practice of the oldest profession in the state, or break the nexus of drugs, crime, and exploitation of the vulnerable? I do not.”

Journalist Michael Cernovich:

“It’s empirically proven that criminalizing sex work allows children to be sex trafficked more readily as they are afraid to turn to authorities and wonder if they will be arrested.”

Enrique Carmona:

“We need to put aside moralistic prejudices, whether based on religion or an idealistic form of feminism, and figure out what is in the best interests of the sex workers and public interest as well.”

Ruby Rae, professional courtesan

“In the brothels, we have the choice, always, to say which clients we will say yes and no to. We have staff that would never let a man hurt us, and we have a clientele that do not come here to hurt us.”

Kiki Lover, professional courtesan:

“We are human beings who chose to do sex work on our own free will. We get treated with respect and like family at the brothels. It’s a job just like any other job. We sell a service that all humans need.”

Paris Envy, professional courtesan:

“I’m not ‘exploited.’ I’m not ‘trafficked.’ I’m not ‘brainwashed.’ I don’t need to be ‘saved.’ I’ve freely chosen this line of work, which is a legal, private transaction between consenting adults.”

Alice Little, professional courtesan:

“It’s ILLEGAL sex work that exploits children. It’s ILLEGAL sex work that traffics. It’s ILLEGAL sex work that sees women exploited and abused by pimps.”

Jim Shedd, Nevadan

“Prostitution should be licensed, regulated, taxed like any other service industry. There are many single or widowed men and women who should be able to take advantage of such services provided by consenting adults for consenting adults. Let’s act to at least reduce illegal sex trafficking and other sex crimes by creating safe and legal outlets for paying adults who wish to use them.”

Paul Bourassa, brothel customer:

“Some people are just never given a chance in the dating scene, so brothels offer those of us with no experience a chance to learn what it’s like to be on a date.”

Lewis Dawkins, brothel customer:

“It’s not always about sex. Little compliments and encouragements offered by the ladies help build my self-confidence. It’s a business, yes. But the ladies care personally about their clients. That means a lot.”

Brett Caton, brothel customer:

“I think brothels provide an important function in society. Legal ones give a safe outlet to their customers and for some men it is the only way they get so much as a hug.”

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Mission

The Nevada Brothel Association PAC is a coalition of legal brothel owners, brothel workers, brothel clients and brothel supporters dedicated to defending a woman’s right to choose professional sex work as a career, protecting the public’s health and safety, and preserving Nevada’s rich live-and-let-live heritage.